Trade Wars Are Class Wars

Economics commentator at Barron’s Matthew C. Klein and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Michael Pettis illuminate the relationships between trade and financial flows that affect the well-being of nations. The authors’ investigation of Chinese and German trade surpluses, and their impacts on the rest of the world, confronts how domestic inequality finances development and creates inequities in trade-deficit countries such as the United States.

The authors make the compelling point that income-distribution policies that serve the interests of business and political elites – to the detriment of ordinary people – are de facto class warfare, which causes trade disputes and imperils global peace.